


Human Heart

by nereidee (aurasama)



Series: Frictional October 2018 challenge [2]
Category: SOMA (Video Game)
Genre: Existential Angst, Flash Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 04:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16211132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurasama/pseuds/nereidee
Summary: Fear is all Simon has now, yet it's the last anchor to his humanity now that there is nothing else left of who he used to be.Written for the Frictional October challenge on Tumblr, based on the prompt 'human heart'.





	Human Heart

He wills himself to be quiet, quiet as possible, out of sight. He doesn't dare make a sound as he curls up in the corner with his head bowed between his legs, and though the creature – one of WAU's monsters – makes his senses go haywire as it lumbers past, it does not seem to notice him.  
  
The need to hold his breath is a reflex, Simon knows, one that he doesn't need or even have the ability for any more, but he thinks he does just so – or at least his mind perceives it as holding his breath, anyway. His vision is fragmented, once more, a ringing filling his ears. Like one of his worse migraines, only there is no pain involved this time, just this shrill noise that he can only describe as screeching, and he knows it would make him sick to his stomach if it was possible.  
  
_Please make it go away. Please. Please,_ Simon repeats in his head, and the rush of blood, the rhythmic thrum of a heartbeat is deafening in his head. What heart he has isn't his, nor should it beat any more, but he hears it as loud and clear as ever. It makes his fingertips vibrate. It pounds blood against his eardrums. It beats faster, harder with adrenaline, harder the more afraid he is, and he is afraid, yes, more afraid than he ever remembers being, more afraid than he ever felt after the car crash. More afraid than the Simon who died in Toronto felt on his death bed, surely. He's afraid and the fear makes him feel more human and more alive than he should.  
  
Slowly, he places his hand over the place where a heart would be, and though he knows it's impossible, he feels its furious drumming against his palm. There is something reassuring about it and he wonders if it's his own mind looking out for him or just a sign of it finally collapsing from the stress.  
  
_Or m_ _aybe there's something more to a human heart than just the physical part,_ he thinks quietly. He knows Cath would disagree; the notion would probably confuse her, perhaps even amuse her. But here, crouching in a corner, afraid to die, he feels more surely like himself – like Simon – than ever, with a body that isn't his and a heart that does not beat. Wires, metal, gel. A dead, mutilated corpse in a diving suit that the Simon he isn't, the dead Simon of 100 years ago, wouldn't even know how to operate. A structure that should not even be called human, but it's all him.  
  
He thinks about the irony of it; that out of all the possible things it's the one thing that has fully carried over to this existence, despite the physical barrier. The one thing that makes him who he is, even in this form.  
  
_I wonder if this is what Cath meant. That she feels about as human as before, despite no longer having a body._  
  
And while he doesn't know what he should call it – a heart, a soul or something else –, he knows it's still there. Somewhere, deep down, there is a part that's still all him, all Simon.


End file.
